A police officer was shot in a quiet New Jersey suburb Monday after an incident at a home, according to law enforcement.
Police were called to a three-family home on Forest Street in Montclair in the afternoon, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office said. A neighbor said a couple who live on the first floor told her their upstairs neighbor, who has two young children in the home, confronted them with a gun.
"She told me that she came out with a shot gun saying this is her f---ing territory," said neighbor Marilyn Sprague.
A woman at the scene fired a gun, striking one of the responding officers, according to the prosecutor's office.
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"They screamed on the radio 'Shots fired, officer down,' and they were screaming [for] everybody to get off the streets," said another neighbor, Sean Ruff, who is a retired Montclair police officer. "She was screaming something crazy, nobody could understand."
An officer then returned fire, striking the shooter. A call about the injured officer came in around 2:45 p.m. It was not clear whether the officer who was shot was the one who returned fire or if it was another officer at the scene.
Both the officer and the shooter were taken to University Hospital in Newark , though neither was seriously injured, according to the prosecutor's office.
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At least one of the shooter's children was home at the time, heard screaming and crying while being carried away by an officer trying to soothe them.
Neighbors said the woman and her children have only lived at the house for a few months, and no one seemed to think anything was off about the family.
The length of Forest Street was shut down as a result of the shooting. Montclair High School, Renaissance Middle School and Watchung Elementary School were ordered to shelter in place temporarily during the investigation, the district superintendent told parents in an email. Students were later dismissed as usual.
An investigation is ongoing.
